Underserved youth present lending and protection platforms

NEW YORK-- The NY Tech Meetup is getting younger. At the NYU Skirball Theater Last March 1, it featured startup demos from C/I, which is cultivating the potential of underserved youth by narrowing the technical skills and opportunity gap in various communities. It essentially gives students access to computer education.

Among the youth-oriented projects is Lend a Hand, is a tool that helps high school students earn money for college by doing community service. Through sponsors, students can earn money for college. It also featured Teens Hope, a website that allows students to communicate with career experts and request to job-shadow opportunity with them so that students can make better decisions about their future career.

Another startup, Protect & Swerve, is a civic endeavor from its teen founders. It allows users to post videos of police abuses, track them on an interactive map and even play a game in which the goal is to avoid gunfire from police officers.

The other presenters at the meetup were Ingredient 1, the New York Attorney General, RaceYa, Siren, Sols, Atri.me and Parking Oracle.

Ingredient 1 is an app that removes the chaos from food, empowering people to discover healthy food based on diet, philosophy and taste. There are reportedly 35,000 products in a grocery store that makes it hard to get information. With the app, you can discover products before one gets to the store. It hopes to branch out to restaurants.

The New York Attorney General is using technology to improve government transparency and accountability, by providing New Yorkers access to the newly upgraded public data portal, www.nyopengovernment.com

NyOpenGovernment.com hopes to make government more transparent. The difference now is that the issues/topics are in one site whereas it was in disparate websites in the past. RaceYa is a retail experience where kids can build race and hack controlled cars while also learning science, tech engineering, arts and math.

Smart Siren Technology dba Siren is a protective accessory for women. It instantly activates a hidden 114+ db modular alarm during an emergency.

Sols is a custom orthotics app that measures your feet, so you can get the right cushioning for your feet.

Atri.me is interesting. It hopes you are paid for and paid from the web, so if you have a Twitter handle and you use its Google Plug-in, you can tweet to earn money from your posts, especially if you are active in your postings and articles online.

The Hack of the Month featured Parking Oracle, so you can avoid those parking tickets, as it shows you time and schedule on your phone. It’s simplifying parking signs with image processing and machine learning and Google Vision.